I sometimes wonder why exactly Google or Microsoft, or well their search engines are interested in my queries about cats, recipes or Java syntax interests. I suppose the cookies that are left on my hard disk while shopping are interesting to someone but mainly things I have bought in the past.
I suppose that these things when put together might help some company to sell me either cat collars or Java Cookbook, 3rd Edition. Yet, this types of information must be some pretty valuable information based on the recent announcement that WhatsApp users will no longer need to pay their yearly 99 cents subscription.
Facebook is probably not discontinuing the income stream because it has already paid off the 19 billion they paid to acquire WhatsApp but more likely a ploy to increase their user base. Just like any good supply / demand situation, lower the cost to increase the number of users. This along with network effects should help to create a bigger group and more valuable group.
How valuable is the group? Well, if Facebook is forgoing this fee then the group must be worth at least the 99 cents per person on average but more likely they are trying to get at least 20% on top of that. Big companies are not so interested in tackling the opportunities yielding 1% more profit unless there are no other options.
Whatsapp userbase estimates
| Users | Est. Value | |
|---|---|---|
| Apr 2013 | 200,000 | 240,000 |
| Jan 2014 | 430,000 | 516,000 |
| Jan 2015 | 700,000 | 840,000 |
| Feb 2016 | 1,000,000 | 1,200,000 |
Whatsapp seems to be trying very hard to only collect the minimum amount of information which mainly comes down to the mobile number. However, by signing up with Whatsapp you are giving over the permission for them to periodically troll through your address book to find other people you might be connected with.
On the surface this does seem quite reasonable as it does allow you to find others that you may already know, but it also allows a multinational the ability to track groups of people that are all somehow associated and keep those associations up to date.
Using Whatsapp doesn’t directly get any information about any of these users or groups. Yet if any of these people use other related Whatsapp services such as Facebook some crumbs of information may be be collected and group behavior will be correlated at the corporate level.
The growth of the WhatsApp user base has seen significant growth since they were purchased by Facebook. Is the plan to expand the group even further because of their eliminating the monthly fee? It is also possible that the growth of WhatsApp users is tapering off and would peak in a couple of years at the current rate. Another possibility is that there already some plans for monetizing these groups.
In general I get a bit nervous when I see that any of my “Status Submissions” are being handed over to the company to be used in pretty much any manner that they see fit.
5. User Status Submissions
… you hereby grant WhatsApp a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the Status Submissions in connection with the WhatsApp Service…
Ok, Status Submissions is not the same thing as Whatsapp is reading my messages but their language is worrying to me nonetheless.
Bankruptcy
It is silly to consider that Whatsapp or its parent Facebook would go bankrupt but that possibility has already been considered. In fact should they go bankrupt, be sold, merged, acquire something or even some other “change control” occur they have already determined that they own the data about you and that what to do with your data.
In the Event of Merger, Sale, or Bankruptcy
… we may not be able to control how your personal information is treated, transferred, or used.
Sometimes Europeans feel a bit better about themselves due to superior data protection laws, but those laws do not have any real impact if they are being signed away.
Special Note to International Users
… you are transferring your personal information to the United States and you expressly consent to that transfer and consent to be governed by California law for these purposes.
“When something online is free, if you’re not the customer, you’re the product.”
Whatsapp Legal notice
